City council calls special meeting to force a vote on lot size reduction

SPRING CITY—The Spring City Council went over the head of Mayor Chris Anderson and called a special meeting last Tuesday to vote on the explosive issue of changing the minimum residential lot size in the city.
The meeting occurred after Messenger press time so the paper can’t report the outcome until next week.
A Spring City ordinance gives the mayor power to set the agenda for regularly scheduled meetings and to call special meetings. But it also says two members of the council can call a special meeting without the mayor’s approval. That’s what happened earlier this week.
Currently, all of Spring City is zoned for 1.06-acre lots. The zoning mirrors the grid set up by pioneer settlers. But at least three council members have said at different times that they favor changing the zoning to permit half-acre home lots in some or all of the town.
The lot-size ordinance was scheduled to come up at a regular meeting Oct. 9, but Mayor Anderson, exercising his authority to set the agenda, took the issue off the agenda.
The mayor said his reason was to provide more time for negotiation between the city and Friends of Historic Spring City, one of the main plaintiffs in a wide-ranging lawsuit against the city addressing lot size and other issues.
Prior to the Tuesday meeting, Councilman Marty McCain told the Messenger the council had discussed lot size for more than a year and directed ordinances changing the lot size to be drafted.
McCain said negotiation with the Friends and their attorney on revising the drafts weren’t getting anywhere. He noted that the Spring City Planning and Zoning Commission had published and disseminated the required notices and held a public hearing on draft ordinances on Oct. 1. He said there was no grounds for further delay.
Two ordinances are on the table. Ordinances 2025-03 changes the minimum buildable lot to a half-acre citywide, enabling owners of 1.06-acre lots to split their lots. Ordinance 2025-05 keeps the 1.06-acre size in a designated historic zone but permits half-acre lots everywhere else.
Passage of either ordinances might not change anything in the immediate future. Lowell Brown, who is associated with a group called Citizens for Spring City, emailed the Messenger to say if either ordinance passes, the group will immediately apply for a referendum to submit the ordinance to voters.
The referendum sponsors would have to gather signatures of 15 percent of active registered voters in Spring City. Then the signatures would have to be verified. But if Citizens for Spring City met all the requirements, implementation of the ordinances would go on hold until the Nov. 3, 2026 general election.